


Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus

by aryastark_valarmorghulis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, First War with Voldemort, Graveyard Sex, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, POV Remus Lupin, RS Fireside Tales, Riddles and Puzzles, Romance, Semi-Public Sex, Sphinxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-10-17 15:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17563094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryastark_valarmorghulis/pseuds/aryastark_valarmorghulis
Summary: 'He wondered, darkly, how much all those Greengrasses, Flints, Shafiqs and Rowles would scream in outrage if they could see him, a half-blood werewolf, daring to wander near their pompous tombs.“Moony! This one!”Only Sirius, Merlin help him, could sound excited to desecrate the grave of one of his ancestors.'





	Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta [Havelocked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havelocked) for the in-depth advice, to loonyasalovegood for the lovely feedback, and obviously to the [R/S Fireside tales](https://rsfiresidetales.tumblr.com/) mods!  
> Warnings: semi-public sex between consenting adults.

Their shoes crushed the rimed grass, leaving its short blades gray and crumpled after their silent tread, the budding lawn shredded by an off-season frost.

Plumbeous clouds covered the sky like a heavy blanket and filmy fog rose up from the ground. Bare trees and gravestones were rendered invisible until Remus was almost blinded by a skeletal branch hanging low or stumbled on a marble slab.

Sirius had said Arcturus Black was most likely buried in one of the mausoleums, on the northern edge of the graveyard: apparently, the rich made sure to avoid mingling with the poor even in death. Sirius walked ahead, his black cloak fluttering in the chilly air as they crossed a row of soiled headstones, their odd shapes rising up from the earth like shuttered windows into the afterlife.

Remus, following a couple of steps behind, pointed his wand to the ground and focused his mind on the spell, _Homenum Revelio,_ eyes darting left and right then glancing behind. Nothing changed, the thick, lazy curls of mist still white and unmarked, except for the red cross now sparkling brightly over Sirius' dark head.

“Again?” Sirius didn't turn, but Remus' could clearly picture his annoyed scoff. “Did you forget we're under two Disguising Spells – one of which you cast – and I've got Mad Eye's detector?”

With a flick of his wand, Remus vanished the red brand. “Well, forgive me if I doubt Voldemort can be fooled by a couple of spells and a trinket,” he muttered.

Sirius’ bark of a laugh cut the silence like a blade and Remus flinched. “Forgive me if I doubt Voldemort will show his ugly mug in this forsaken place, Moony.”

“Well, the Death Eaters could! And lower your voice!” Remus hissed.

“Who am I disturbing? The dead?” Sirius replied. “And I'll remind you that a lot of Death Eaters we know are stupid gits who can't work their way around a simple Concealment Charm. ”

Remus had to bite his tongue. This wasn't the time or the place to remind Sirius they weren't practising spells in a classroom to get good grades anymore. Even if Dumbledore had assigned Sirius only useless tasks so far – clearly because he needed to measure his reliability – they were still fighting a war, not playing at one.

“If you're really troubled by the most-forsaken cemetery in the country, Moony, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to go up north the next full moon,” Sirius chuckled, without so much as a trace of humour.

“Well, it's not up to you to decide who's allowed what, is it?” Remus bit back, tired of that argument. At first, he had thought Sirius was worried for him, up north alone amongst werewolves; now he suspected he was angry at Dumbledore for not assigning him equally important missions.

“You're touchy today,” Sirius drawled out, sounding almost bored. “What about a shag later?”

Remus kicked a fallen twig, the mist quickly swallowing it as it rolled over. That thing between them hadn’t been going on for more than a month, but apparently sex could embitter even the most solid of friendships, especially if one of them was in love and the other one only wanted – well not even Merlin knew what Sirius wanted. A respite from his ennui, maybe?

“Sure. You want to go to my place?” Remus asked, unable to withhold the bitterness in his tone. “Maybe we could do it on an actual bed this time?”

“You seemed to like back alleys and bathrooms… they can’t be more uncomfortable than that couch of yours,” Sirius replied, suave, and then, without leaving him time to reply, he added, “Over there, Moony. ”

As soon as Sirius said the words, Remus caught a glimpse of circular walls in a row, arising from the mist like a colony of spectral mushrooms.

They stepped carefully around the last graves, some broken in half with shards of stone scattered on the ground, others low and curved, bearing no names but faded runes and carved symbols. Remus could only catch a peek of those shapes before they got swallowed up again by the fog: two clasping hands, an hourglass with wings, an upside-down torch.

The mausoleums in a row they were approaching seemed to be Victorian in style – Arcturus Black the First lived in the nineteenth century, after all. Pointed arches, clustered columns, sharply pointed spires, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses adorned these tombs: less ancient than the last graves they’d passed, these were far more pretentious. For being the eternal homes of a few Purebloods who in life had been outcasts enough to earn a separate burial from their families, they certainly endeavoured to distance themselves from the rabble. Remus thought it was quite foolish since dead rich people were bound to become ashes and bones just like poor people, and he remembered that verse from a Muggle poem he’d read as a kid which had stuck with him: _The paths of glory lead but to the grave._

He wondered, darkly, how much all those Greengrasses, Flints, Shafiqs and Rowles would scream in outrage if they could see him, a half-blood werewolf, daring to wander near their pompous tombs.

“Moony! This one!”

Only Sirius, Merlin help him, could sound excited to desecrate the grave of one of his ancestors. He had stopped in front of a mausoleum that seemed similar to his neighbour's, but when Remus drew nearer he could see the letters _A_ and _B_ carved on the architrave. Alongside these were a lot of stylized drawings he couldn't decipher, but recognized as hieroglyphics. All added up, since Dumbledore had told Sirius that Arcturus Black was an Egyptologist and – if his suspicions were right and they usually were – also a thief of magical Egyptian artefacts. Remus gripped his wand tightly.

“What does Moody's detector say?”

“Nothing. Look.” Sirius turned to him, the little round lens in his hand still and silent, reflecting nothing but mist. He looked oddly in place, looming out of the brume, tall and raven-haired, pale skin and fair eyes, black cloak swaying, a perfect picture for a Muggle penny dreadful's unfairly handsome hero.

“Well, I'll be very surprised if an Egyptologist with his elbows deep in Dark Magic didn't put a curse on his tomb,” replied Remus.

“He's been blasted off the family tapestry. Maybe he wasn't that bad?” Sirius joked, but at the same time, he rapped twice on the stone doors, his wandless _Specialis Revelio_ revealing, in fact, nothing. Remus could feel his clothes stick to his back, damp from a combination of humidity and cold sweat. He cast another Homenum _Revelio_ , but only one cross appeared, twinkling like a red halo above Sirius' head.

“Try _Reparifarge_?” he prompted.

“Done already, and nothing,” Sirius huffed. He poked at the stone door with the tip of his wand. Nothing. Remus could see he was getting impatient. “Look, I'm blasting this stupid door open-”

“ _PROTEGO_!”

A shift of air, an orange spot at the periphery of his eye, Sirius' back against his chest, two wands pointed, two shields between them and the creature at their right.

“If you have a grain of wisdom, you won't blast a thing. The only way inside that tomb is past me.”

She sat on her haunches, her sharp-clawed front paws ready to spring, her long yellowish tail twitching at her side, her lips curved in a faint smile.

Remus didn't feel like smiling, not a bit. He frantically tried to retrieve in his memory what he learned at Hogwarts about Sphinxes: highly intelligent, usually dangerous only when threatened. His brain slipped in the fortuitous notion that, in the Ministry of Magic Classification, Sphinxes were considered less dangerous than werewolves.

“I suppose we're about to hear a riddle, aren't we?” asked Sirius, his voice steady, his wand still holding up the shield.

“But we can choose not to answer and go away. Right?” added Remus, quickly.

She nodded. “Indeed. Remain in silence and I will let you walk away from me – unharmed. Answer on your first guess and I'll let you enter. Answer wrongly,” she smiled openly this time, showing her pointed teeth, “and I will _eat_ you.”

Sirius nodded. Remus sighed. “Let's hear it, then.”

She recited in a deep, mellow voice:

“ _White is the field,_

_black is the seed,_

_and the man who sows it_

_is of very great knowledge.”_

Sirius turned to him, his brow furrowed. “A black seed that gives knowledge...” he murmured.

Remus knew that the sensible thing was going away without tempting fate, but his mind was already spooling the Sphinx's words back and forth.

“So, a white field with black seeds that gives knowledge?” Remus repeated, slowly. “Something black poured over something white that gives knowledge...” Wait. “Hang on. The white field could be-”

“Blank parchment!” yelled Sirius, and Remus, at the same time: “The white page? Or yes, yes, blank parchment, it's the same, so the black seed must be the ink, right?”

“Yes, Moony, the ink, or the letters!”

“So if the field is a page and the seeds are letters-” repeated Remus, “then what gives great knowledge should be-”

“ _Reading_. The answer is reading,” interrupted Sirius, impatient as ever. Remus' heart skipped a beat but the Sphinx nodded and smiled, seemingly pleased, curling up on the ground like an over-sized cat.

“ _You_ may enter, now,” she said, her almond-shaped dark eyes fixed on Sirius. “Not _you_ , though,” she licked one of her paws, tail swaying lazily. “Beasts aren't allowed, no matter how many riddles they solve. You'll have to wait here with me.”

Sirius and Remus exchanged a look. Remus didn't miss how Sirius' eyes narrowed in anger at the word _beasts._ He had always been way more sensitive than Remus on the topic, but it wasn't the time to pick fights with Sphinxes. It was time to get inside that bloody mausoleum and retrieve the Udjat, provided it was really there. “Let's open that door, all right?”

Sirius flicked his wand at the carved stone doors and they opened at once, scraping the marble floor. They both repeated all the Revealing spells, under the curious gaze of the Sphinx. Nothing.

“I'm going in,” said Sirius, and he did. But Remus couldn't: it was like trying to walk through a solid though invisible wall of stone. He could feel, like an itch on the back of his neck, the amused stare of the Sphinx as he tried to hex the thin air in vain.

“Pads, do the thing and I'll keep watch outside, all right? Be careful!” _Don't do stupid things to prove yourself to Dumbledore._

“Don't worry, Moony,” Sirius' voice was loud and clear from inside the crypt, even if Remus couldn't see anything but darkness through the open doors. His heart was stuck in his throat, flailing helplessly like an injured animal. All the more now, more than before, when they had to solve the Sphinx riddle: he couldn't stomach the thought of Sirius alone in the crypt. Sirius was more than capable of handling himself, but he was also rash and reckless and, worse than that, determined to retrieve the Udjat at any cost.

“It might take me a while, Moony, everything here is bloody transfigured! I can hear you worrying, so just don't!”

“Fine!” He bet that bloody Udjat wasn't even that precious, that Dumbledore only wanted to test how devoted to the cause Sirius was.

“Afraid to lose your owner?”

Remus gaped at the Sphinx. “My  _owner_?” he spluttered, before remembering who – what – he was replying to.

The Sphinx batted her long, dark eyelashes, face propped on her front paws, mouth curved in a scythe-like smile, hair a black shiny brushstroke in the whiteness of mist surrounding them.

“Owner, lover, is there a difference?” she asked, her melodious voice tinged with humour.

Remus stared at her: he had no idea if Sphinxes were clairvoyant, or if his love for Sirius was so easily written on his face.

“I'd say there is,” he replied, slowly. She stared in return, unblinking: her face was the perfect oval one would expect to find more in ancient paintings than in illustrated books on Magical Beasts, her olive skin glowed almost golden in the fog, face adorned with heart-shaped smiling lips and full cheeks. Remus refused to flush under her scrutiny, even if he had never been observed so thoroughly by such a beautiful woman – except, of course, she wasn't a woman at all.

“I won't attack you if you won't try to hurt me with that twig,” she said, still lying on the ground.

“I won't hurt you if you don't give me reasons to,” promised Remus. Beneath the tension and the worry for Sirius, his brain registered, bewildered, the bizarre fact that he was conversing with a Sphinx. He could hear Sirius' faint grumbling from inside the mausoleum, and he caught a couple of swear words.

“Don't be afraid for your master,” said the Sphinx. Remus tried not to grit his teeth at the choice of words. “The only cruel, dangerous being in this place is himself.”

“Oh, now that we're done with riddles we're playing mind games, are we?” said Remus, drily. Her laugh echoed in the silence like a melody.

“And how would you describe humans who want to use us if not cruel and dangerous?” As she rolled on her side, Remus raised his wand, but she merely scratched her back on the ground and then curled up on her stomach again.

“Almost done, Moony! Everything all right out there?” called Sirius.

“Yes!” he replied, and then, lowering his voice but not his wand. “Who's using you?”

She didn't answer, but she merely glanced at the open door, her black eyes glistening, her beautiful face expressionless. Remus didn't trust her, not one bit, but he found himself thinking: by no means an expert on Sphinxes, he remembered that wizards used them to stand guard, but what exactly entailed _using_ them? He also remembered Sphinxes were highly intelligent and thus, excellent at manipulation.

“You _can_ leave this place if you want, can't you?”

She smiled her enigmatic smile again. “Remember that your handler has a wicked bloodline.” Somehow, he couldn't picture wizards and Sphinxes signing a fair contract of employment and, even if they did, Arcturus Black had been dead for almost a century, so any agreement should have been obliterated after his passing.

Remus was going to question her when Sirius stumbled out of the door, wand lit up, cloak streaked with dirt, cheeks rosy and dimpled, a satisfied grin gracing his face.

“Done!” he winked, patting his pocket. Before Remus could speak, the Sphinx rose on her legs and walked away, a yellow shape fading out in the mist.

“Padfoot, did you know-” Remus stopped talking. Sirius' eyes sparkled with that determined, self-assured brightness that he learned to associate with  _wanting_ \- wanting with that single-minded focus that reduced Remus' body a helpless mess of neediness the few times he had been under that scrutiny.

“What?” Sirius flicked his wand and a bright red cross appeared again over his head.

And then Sirius kissed him.

Remus, rationally, understood the rush of adrenaline, the compelling need to release all the repressed tension, the hasty, erratic roads that Sirius' desire sometimes turned to. But Sirius was biting at his lips and tugging his hair, so Remus had to kiss back like a love-starved fool who settled for sex like a palliative.

Sirius' stubble was a sweet prickle on his cheeks and fingers, and the thought of Sirius' dark head between his legs, beard burns on the tender skin of his tights, got him hard in no time. He pushed Sirius away by the shoulder.

“Let's go to my place,” he breathed. “Not here.”

Sirius, panting as well, pressed his wand against Remus' sweaty palm, grabbed him by the hips and kissed him hard, his fingers caressing his crotch, stroking through the cloth. Remus felt it, the hot-bright flow of arousal trickling from his chest to his groin, and tried to fight it.

“Let's go to my place. You can do... you can do whatever you want with me,” he faltered, words tumbling out of his mouth.

“Five minutes, please, Moony,” murmured Sirius, his deft fingers unfastening his belt and the top button of his trousers, drawing his fly down. This was Remus' last chance of being reasonable and reminding him – both of them – that they were in a sodding graveyard, and that he was done being subjected to this intermittent stream of being wanted and then unwanted. Sirius pulled him out, his hands stroking him roughly, his lips biting at his neck, his long hair caressing his cheek, and Remus let himself be wanted, even if only for five minutes. Both wands clutched in one hand, the other one fisting Sirius' dirty cloak, sweat beaded on his hairline.

Soon he was pushed against the mausoleum's wall, back arching, legs trembling, skin alight. For a split second, his traitorous mind, never quiet, remembered the Sphinx's mocking words about being used by a cruel man, and he half wished to shove Sirius away, and half longed to cry out: _please, use me all you want_.

Every thought was wiped out of his head. Mindless, he was - for a moment - happy.

Sirius spilled as soon as Remus put his mouth on him, fingers tussling his hair.

After, they fixed their rumpled clothes hastily after casting a Scourgify Charm on their bodies, avoiding looking at each other. Remus, queasiness seizing his stomach, hoped the Sphinx hadn't lingered nearby, ashamed at the possibility of her relentless stare fixed on him kneeling on the ground. He wondered what the hell he was doing, pleading for crumbs of Sirius' attention.

“Do you want to see it?” asked Sirius, as they were crossing through the graveyard again, much faster than before, headed towards the gate so they could Apparate to the Order's safe-house.

“I think I just saw it,” replied Remus, deadpan.

Sirius barked out a small laugh. “I meant the Udjat.”

“I know. Let's get out and then I'll see it, all right?” He only wanted to leave that buggering graveyard, that milky fog that was weighing him down like a burden, the words of the Sphinx that were echoing in his mind. His skin felt clammy and dirty despite the cleaning charms, and when they finally reached the rusty iron gates he exhaled a breath of relief. They stepped on the thick black line drawn on the ground, carefully arranging their feet so that neither the toes nor the heels of their shoes were sticking out: from here, they could see the white mist inside and the dirty pavement outside. Two Muggle old ladies passed them by, entirely oblivious to their presence.

Remus grabbed Sirius by the shoulder and Disapparated.

The Order's safe-house they were supposed to go to was in Glasgow, an unremarkable red brick cottage, invisible to Muggles and entirely surrounded by a green, blooming high fence of hawthorn. As usual, they ate one leaf, stated their name and business and waited for the enchanted foliage to recognize the truth of their words. In a rustle and crackle of leaves and twigs shifting left and right, a small passage formed. They bowed their heads and passed through the gap, the leaves immediately rearranging themselves behind them.

Emmeline Vance greeted them at the door. “Everything all right?” she asked.

Remus nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

Sirius took the Udjat out of his pocket and placed it on the table above a scroll of parchment without a word. The table was full of open books and candles, wax drops staining the polished wood, but Remus focussed on the Udjat, finally able to take a good look. It was a small amulet, not much bigger than an apple, a stylized eye of Horus rimmed with black paint and two orange teardrops of different length.

“Very well done. I'll write to Dumbledore and Moody right away. Did you check for curses?” she asked, already swirling her wand above the talisman.

“Of course I did,” Sirius replied, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice.

Emmeline was one of the few who argued against “ _fresh out of Hogwarts kids_ ” - her words – joining the Order, and Sirius hadn't forgotten.

“There was a Sphinx guarding it,” added Remus, quickly. “We solved her riddle and then Sirius retrieved the Udjat while I kept watch outside.” _And then we lingered for a quickie._

“Very well done, then,” she repeated, her tone just the right amount of patronizing to annoy Sirius. “Would you like some tea?”

Sirius shrugged. “Nah, I'm going. See you at the next meeting, Mrs Vance.”

Remus smiled at her. “No, thank you, Emmeline, I think I'm going home, too. I only meant to ask, er- what do you know about Sphinxes?”

She arched an eyebrow, her pointed hat bent to the left as she tilted her head, her hazel eyes twinkling curiously.

“Not much, but enough to say that you're lucky to have solved that riddle, Remus. You'll have to ask Alastor for specifics, though.”

They said goodbye and went back outside in complete silence. Remus loathed how every time they hooked up a wall of awkwardness rose between them afterwards and he loathed himself because he let his own stupid desires sour their friendship. He missed the easy brotherly affection, the old times when they could talk about everything and nothing. He wondered if an eighteen year-old bloke could already miss the good old days. Outside the fence, Sirius put a hand on his forearm, and Remus was forced to look at him.

“Can I still come to your place? We can grab a curry or something?” he asked, a tentative smile on his face. “Are you upset with me, Moony?”

Remus smiled, almost by accident: he couldn't let Sirius think he was angry at him since he was mostly only angry at his own foolish, smitten self. Maybe he wasn't the only one who missed the old times; maybe Sirius too realized that a solid eight years old friendship was worth more than a few sad fucks.

“I'm not upset, and of course we can go to my place. Come on.”

He grabbed Sirius' arm and they Apparated into his kitchen, where the late afternoon light seeped through the closed shutters. Sirius went out to buy a curry and Remus opened the last beer he had after a vain attempt at tidying up the room. At least he managed to clean the dirty dishes left on the sink and pile up all the books and records scattered on the floor. Too bad there wasn't a charm to spell the place to look cosier: the white walls were bare and lined by cracks like old skin, the folding table and chairs mismatched, the stove covered in spots. Sirius' mocking remark about his couch stung more than ever, but when he came back, a plastic bag in one hand and a box in another, and said: “I bought a carrot cake!” Remus smiled.

They ate in silence, Sirius oddly quiet until they finished their food.

“What did the Sphinx tell you when I was inside the crypt? Did she ask another riddle?”

Remus blinked and waited for him to down the last sip of beer: he hadn't expected that question. Sirius had probably overheard their voices.

“No, she didn't.” He stood up, knee joints cracking, and crumpled the empty aluminium boxes to throw them in the trash bin.

“So what did she say? I heard you talking for a while,” Sirius pressed on, slouching on the plastic chair, swinging it back on two legs.

Remus looked at him - the long column of his neck, the broad expanse of his shoulders, the straight nose - and wondered, not for the first time, why the hell Sirius had been interested in shagging him in the first place.

“She vaguely hinted your ancestor cursed her to guard his grave forever,” he explained and then took a breath, carefully composing the next sentence in his mind before speaking. “And then she warned me about the Blacks and their cruel habits, using beasts like us for their needs.”

Sirius let the chair fall back on all four legs with a loud bang.

“Did she. And how did you answer?” Under the harsh electric bulb’s yellow light, his cheeks were flushing a fierce shade of red.

“That I'm not a beast,” lied Remus. Now that he was recollecting the exchange, he remembered he never uttered a word against her calling him a _beast_. He wondered what that said about him, that he was far less angry at hearing the slur than Sirius.

“No, you're not!” said Sirius, vehemently, his brow creased. He stood up, probably to pace in a very dramatic manner, but the kitchen was too narrow, and he kept bumping into the books piled on the floor and at the table's corners, looking rather silly. He stopped near Remus, hair falling on his cheeks, teeth worrying his lips.

“I have been...  _unkind_ to you lately, haven't I?” he sighed, looking at a smudge of dirt on the wooden floor.

It was Remus' turn to flush and avert his head, even if Sirius wasn't looking at him. “No, Pads, no, you haven't,” he replied, quickly. “Sometimes I get- I get sad and I worry-”

“Because of me,” Sirius interrupted, shaking his head.

Their eyes met, closer than they had ever been without kissing involved, but Remus doubted they were going to kiss again, not with Sirius' eyes so sad, almost pleading.

“No, because worrying and getting sad... it's what I do. You know me. And the war isn't exactly a morale boost. So don't give yourself too much credit,” he joked, lamely.

The corners of Sirius' lovely mouth curved a little. “Moony, I- I think I'd be terrible at being... being together, like a relationship-”

“Sirius, _no._ It's _fine_ , I understand you don't want to-”

“Will you let me finish? Look, do you remember what we talked about that night at the Three Broomsticks, before we got so pissed that I threw up on the pavement?” asked Sirius, his hands gripping a handful of Remus' jumper.

“Kind of unforgettable, how you almost threw up on my shoes,” replied Remus, wary of where this conversation was leading them. “But I remember, yes. We agreed that Prongs was being naïve, with the engagement and stuff.”

Sirius nodded. “You said it was crazy to commit so seriously in these times, where everything could go to shit and one moment you're dining by candlelight and the next one your roof is blown to pieces and there's a Dark Mark over your love nest.”

Remus sighed. He had said that before hooking up with Sirius and right after the shock of James announcing his engagement, that at the time had seemed the most ridiculously conservative grown-up thing. They both had needed to vent their dismay. “In my defence, I was pretty pissed too. But your point is pretty adamant.”

“I'm not finished yet. I think you were right, you usually are, and besides,  _me_ in a relationship? I'm not Prongs, I'd be terrible at it and get everything wrong and hurt you a lot, which is the  _last_ thing I want to do. Because we're friends and you mean- a lot to me, all right? So I reckoned it would be harmless if it was just shagging. But I got this wrong, too, because you're miserable with this sex-only arrangement and I want- I want my Moony back.”

Remus had seen it coming, and he smiled, the friend-half of his heart relieved and the lover-half saddened. “I'm here, Padfoot, and I'll always be your friend. We can stop shagging and go back to what we were before.”

Sirius pressed their foreheads together, his long hair tickling Remus' nose. He had never been so sweet before. “You don't want to stop, though. I don't either. I'm still wholeheartedly confident that it's a recipe for disaster, but we could try?”

Sirius' hands were trembling a little on his waist.

Remus, too in love to care how badly it would end, leaned in and kissed him like he’d always wanted to: slow and tender, thumbs caressing the sides of his face.

Later, they shared a fag in bed, sticky with sweat, sitting propped on the cushions, shoulders pressed together, feet touching under the sheets. Remus laughed softly when Sirius asked him, rhetorically, if he could sleep there.

“I hope my bed isn’t more uncomfortable than a grave?” Remus joked, blowing a puff of smoke on his face.

Sirius stuck his tongue out at him, playful, and plucked the cigarette from his fingers. “I'll sleep on you instead then.”

“Fine.” Dizzy with affection, he kissed Sirius again, a smoky breath lovingly shared.

Sirius held the half-smoked fag to Remus' parted lips as he sucked in a breath.

“So. Are you going to tell me what that Sphinx really said?”

Remus, basking in that cloud of smoky intimacy, didn't have it in him to scowl. “Sirius, I told you already! That was the truth!”

Sirius, as promised, climbed on his lap, warm hands pulling playfully at strands of Remus' hair. “Oh, really. You should stay away from me because I'm as evil as my crazy ancestor who cursed her to keep watch on his grave?”

“She didn't say openly the last part, but it was heavily implied, yes.” Remus' fingertips lightly stroked the mesmerizing dark trail of hair running from Sirius’ navel to his groin, tugging a little, feeling more than hearing his breath faltering. “She could be lying, though. I'll ask Moody what he knows about Sphinxes.”

Sirius, grey eyes fixed on him, clasped Remus' wrist with his fingers and placed their joined hands on his hardening prick, his other hand cupping Remus' cheek. “I bet you want to go back there to break her curse, even if she called you a beast and wanted to eat us.”

Remus turned to kiss and nuzzle his palm, before biting and licking at his thumb. “Maybe I do,” he replied, Sirius hot and hard between his fingers. “And I'm sure she didn't mean it as an insult.”

“But she's wrong about me using you, Moony. I could  _never..._ I want _-_ I want to be with you.”

The rest of the conversation was drowned in whimpers, soft cries and sweet nonsense.

Remus believed him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aryastark-valarmorghulis)!


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